Blogs
Norway Chess R3: Going natural

Norway Chess R3: Going natural

Avatar of Erle
Erle
| 1

Have you ever tried to guess the moves of top players during their games? I know I have, and as the time has gone by - I've seen a pattern: There are very little hocus pocus! It tend to seem that like as long as you manage to guess the natural moves of the position, you have a fair chance of getting a decent percent of your guesses right.

Of course, the ability to choose the right plan in critical moments or details like in what order to execute a plan, will always be factors separating the great players from the rest. However: Knowing what will usually be the best environment for your pieces, will bring you a long way. In round three of the Altibox Norway Chess Magnus Carlsen really went natural in his game against Hikaru Nakamura. Take a look at this: 

null

The top players' chess are not always as fancy as we might imagine it to be. Photo: Maria Emelianova 

Summarized, we could say that we would like to keep our pawns and pieces in squares where they occupy as many and important squares as possible (please see the annotations for excellent examples). Now - you might not be ready to play like Magnus Carlsen yet, but by knowing this - you are certainly getting closer.